• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

New Hampshire primary results

Puppycow said:
DIXVILLE NOTCH, N.H. — The voters of this tiny hamlet, all nine of them, have spoken. Very briefly.

The polls opened here at midnight and closed less than a minute later, and the tally was final by 12:05 a.m. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman tied, with two votes each. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul each got one vote. President Obama received his very first live votes of confidence — three of them.
Click to expand...

If I may wax romantic for a moment... don't you just love stories like this? I do. I love the political theater of primary season, where powerful men must court the opinions of small-town Iowans and New Hampshirites and South Carolinians.

In a community of 9 voters, 2 voted for Romney, 2 for Huntsman... and a nation of 300,000,000 people was informed about it.

There's something about the returns from Dixville Notch that make me feel warm and fuzzy about elections in general. It reminds me that my vote counts just as much as theirs did. Or as much as the most powerful person in Manhattan or Washington or Los Angeles or wherever else. Whatever our station in American life, we all get exactly one vote to spend.

It also reminds me that great differences of opinion can exist in the tiniest, most insular corners of America. Go look at Dixville Notch -- it's pretty much just a mountain resort hotel, populated solely by the people who live and work there. And yet they individually went for Obama, Romney, Huntsman, Gingrich, and Paul. You must admit that's a broad spectrum. I like to think about Dixville Notch later in the election season, when I'm tired of "red state/blue state" malarkey. How can a state vote of hundreds of thousands of people be so unanimous when a hamlet of nine can't even reach consensus?

Yes, these little places are quickly forgotten as the primary process moves on to more prominent locales. But they still serve an important role: they're the presidential minor leagues. If you want to win the White House, you've got to win Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina first. No one who failed at this task has even been nominated for president since 1972. (And South Carolina's primary didn't exist at the time.)

So rock on, Dixville Notch. Thank you and your nine voters for always renewing my faith in the power of the ballot.
 
By the way, according to the New York Times:

2012 Primary Process

Delegate Allocation: The 12 at-large delegates at stake represent nearly half of the original total, due to penalties imposed by the Republican National Committee for scheduling the primary in January. Delegates are allocated proportionally based on statewide results, with the state's three Republican National Committee members remaining as unpledged to any candidate.
Click to expand...

So New Hampshire gave up half of its delegates for the privilege of going first. Even so, they probably still have more impact that way than states that vote later. But it's a trade-off.
 
This may be a little bit after-the-fact, but Politifact has rated statements made in the pre-election debate, and found not one clearly true statement. There was one that was mostly true about a toxic dump, and one that was half true, about Huntsman being a better tax-cutter/job creator than Perry, but there was one "mostly false", three falses, here, here and here and two "Pants-on-fire", one from Romney saying we were "close to no longer being a free economy" and the howler from Perry, calling Obama a Socialist.

In short, these guys can't seem to find anything true to attack Obama with and are restricted to lying. Now I'm not naive. I know that all politicians lie, especially about their opponants, but generally they mix the lies with a few truths too. It appears there aren't enough bullets for their "truth" gun, so they're firing the "lie" gun like an assault rifle.
 
Well they tried portraying Obama as a socialist the last time around and it didn't work out so well. Maybe this time they try to out socialist him and take to portraying him as a radical right winger?
 
Triterope said:
There's something about the returns from Dixville Notch that make me feel warm and fuzzy about elections in general. It reminds me that my vote counts just as much as theirs did. Or as much as the most powerful person in Manhattan or Washington or Los Angeles or wherever else. Whatever our station in American life, we all get exactly one vote to spend.
Click to expand...

Lovely sentiment, if only it were true. As long as the electoral college BS makes it possible for a candidate to get fewer votes and win anyway, some people's votes count more than others.
 
Finster said:
Lovely sentiment, if only it were true. As long as the electoral college BS makes it possible for a candidate to get fewer votes and win anyway, some people's votes count more than others.
Click to expand...

The President is only one post. All of the rest of all of the government is elected by the people one vote at a time.

And it is in the primary where the people can directly effect who gets elected; Not all that many votes separated Hillary and Obama. And I believe that had that not fallen out the way it did, we'd be looking at a Democratic primary now, and discussing the failings of President McCain. We'd also have a roaring Sarah Palin humor industry.
 
BenBurch said:
The President is only one post. All of the rest of all of the government is elected by the people one vote at a time.

And it is in the primary where the people can directly effect who gets elected; Not all that many votes separated Hillary and Obama. And I believe that had that not fallen out the way it did, we'd be looking at a Democratic primary now, and discussing the failings of President McCain. We'd also have a roaring Sarah Palin humor industry.
Click to expand...

... and atheists in Hong Kong attending church, synagogue, and Buddhist temples, and praying for the health of our beloved President McCain. :D
 
BenBurch said:
The President is only one post. All of the rest of all of the government is elected by the people one vote at a time.

And it is in the primary where the people can directly effect who gets elected; Not all that many votes separated Hillary and Obama. And I believe that had that not fallen out the way it did, we'd be looking at a Democratic primary now, and discussing the failings of President McCain. We'd also have a roaring Sarah Palin humor industry.
Click to expand...

True, and I didn't mean to derail, it's just that the whole Electoral College thing drives me crazy.
 
DavidJames said:
I consistently see transcripts from call-in lines and letters to the editor that could have been written by the likes of Robert Prey and Jude Brando.
Click to expand...
Rove probably wrote them all and sent them to Hannity and the Rushblob in the daily briefing talking points.
 
BenBurch said:
35% is not a great showing. I expect that, unless the margin improves, Romney is going to have a hard time motivating the already-shrinking GOP base.
Click to expand...
Luckily the country at large is roughly 2:1 against the job Obama has done and is doing.

Agreed that may change after a billion dollars of dem attack ads in Aug-Sep-Oct-early Nov, but I doubt it. Most prefer candidates who run on positive messages.
 
AlBell said:
Luckily the country at large is roughly 2:1 against the job Obama has done and is doing.

Agreed that may change after a billion dollars of dem attack ads in Aug-Sep-Oct-early Nov, but I doubt it. Most prefer candidates who run on positive messages.
Click to expand...

You have a recent poll to back up the 2:1 figure, of course. All I can find is the RCP average where it's about 47:43 (negative) on Obama job approval.

Maybe you're thinking of the approval of Congress? State of the Union? Direction of the country? Those are all lower than Obama's approval rating. Maybe the American public can think? They aren't buying into the demonization of the top guy when it's pretty clear that the whole political mess is at fault.
 
AlBell said:
Luckily the country at large is roughly 2:1 against the job Obama has done and is doing.

Agreed that may change after a billion dollars of dem attack ads in Aug-Sep-Oct-early Nov, but I doubt it. Most prefer candidates who run on positive messages.
Click to expand...

Oh, first, your polling numbers are not recent, I believe.

Second, you don't know how this is done, do you?

Obama spends his money on positive ads. So many positive ads (many already purchased) that there are very few availabilities for anybody else to run an ad.

Then PACs and other stalking horses go negative, hard, with about as much money as Obama himself has.

If Obama does not screw up BIG TIME between now and November, it doesn't matter who you nominate. You could nominate Lincoln again, and it still wouldn't change a thing.

Public opinion is swayed by advertisements, indeed if it were not, a whole industry wouldn't exist. And you simply cannot raise enough funds to compete even if you could nominate a great person.
 
AlBell said:
Nope, although I'll still vote for the Rep nom, even if he's it.

@Foolmewunz
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ministration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

2:1 strongly disapprove(40%) to strongly approve(20%)
Click to expand...

You rounded 39% up to 40% and 22% down to 20%.
And Rasmussen is known to skew results to the right.

According to Gallup, 43% approve and 49% disapprove.

http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_job1.htm

So there's another about 20-25% that approve of Obama's job, but don't strongly approve.
The people who don't like Obama however, really don't like him.
 
Last edited:
BenBurch said:
35% is not a great showing. I expect that, unless the margin improves, Romney is going to have a hard time motivating the already-shrinking GOP base.
Click to expand...

35% ?!!

I assume that was the turnout of Republicans for the NH primary? Do you have a source on that, Ben?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom